Whither do I wander
26/10/2013 at 14:22 (Anorexia, Personal, Writing, Writing Reality articles) (Anorexia, Autumn, Blogging, burnout, emotions, Frozen sky, Kick-Back, Novel writing, One for Sorrow, perspective, psychological, relationships, social media, Twitter, Writing, Writing Reality)
I wasn’t going to post an entry this weekend, nor yet write for Monday Blogs. All the fierce colour has gone out of my mind recently, a prelude to something worse I fear. I wish it were only ‘flu, but it’s more likely a case of the Blues.
Emily Haines knows what I’m talking about.
“Doctor Blind, just prescribe the blue ones / If the dizzying highs don’t subside overnight / Doctor Blind, just prescribe the red ones.” The life and half-life of an addict – lights going out, one by one. Friends and family, falling away.
That has been my time. A rip-curl ride of reds – stark love, stick-tears and falling in a heap at the feet of those who had no need of me, but I gave too many ideals to bother looking for what they meant. Oh, I’m an eventuality, a cause without a rebel; ever a slave to my own passions. I believe too much in one thing, not enough in the other – truth and love so rarely go hand in hand. That summer of long heat and gold shadows and finding my feet walking unknown paths, is almost done. No, it is done; the baleful eye of the sun winks brass light at me these days, while leaves the exact same shade as the polished beech carvings on a market stall, go skirling along the pavement like ashes. The wind is not yet raw. I anticipate a bad fall. Depending on what side of the pond you sit right now, you can take that as many ways as you like.
The way I see now, is a darkening tunnel of light. I pull away from those who would care; run after those that don’t. So it’s always been – an addictive personality, forever craving what I can’t have. Blue pill, red pill, sometimes I’m skyhigh on both while burrowing down in a screaming soul’s night. I woke on Friday morning at dead on 4.15 with tears pouring down my face, mouth open on that silent cry; a wicked memory, a nightmare perhaps, though both are footloose in my mind. I can’t recall what sparked it off, what spared me the end result. So it usually is with those falling dreams; you wake, before whamming into the pavement. The city lights and skyscrapers and blue-black night fly past, your hair and fingers sing through the wind, and you watch the ground come up to swallow you whole –
Shutter out.
Let the Doctor soothe your brain, dear.
I live on snatched time and aching limbs, rum and a cheap equivalent of Red Bull. So much caffeine, so many lip-salve kisses on a glass. I raise one to the world each night, then another, with the hopes of sleeping far more than I should. Reality and fantasy, I want them both, and too often they evade me with the same chevron smiles of the geese, long gone now over the autumn sky. God, I miss their passing. The lake is a little more bare, a little more cold, each time I walk through the park. Some remain, to be fed by the mirroring gaggle of humans, with their bags full of bread and sticky rubbish. The upshot being that the poor overweight bastards (the feathered ones) can’t fly away with their healthier, wiser fellows – their wings are shot, all broken off due to disease inflicted by scooping up great mounds of their own shit with the food thrown out to them in the same patches around the water’s edge. Overcrowding, overfeeding; malnutrition and crossing of wires, as they’re stoked on the same sugar high-crashes we seem to run the gauntlet of every day, out of office and gym and carpark and pub.
Who says we’re not intrinsically linked? I beg to differ. I’d like to do more, but there’s the point of my mouth being sewn shut lately, out of weariness and a slight aversion to Self. Yes, we’re in that thin-ice spot again, where I find ribs as old friends; am frightened by my reflection and embittered by my voice. It’s getting a slight metallic rasp, like Lecter. I’m not lonely, no – far from it. Something else creeps up, a black dog with large silent paws.
It’s the time of year for it, so people tell me. I was stronger at the start of the year, and altogether more naive and unappreciative. Now I know time, its hard tug on others like a hook through the navel – I know what it means to care, to love, to shred your heart into tiny pieces and let them fly on the wind, hoping they’ll reach every poor fucker you give a damn about. Some get a surplus, while others get nothing at all, for days or months on end.
It’s a capricious wind, sorry to say.
I rarely sleep anymore. The night holds too many dreams, both bright and bitter. I want too many things at once, while my brain times itself out. Days become gluey on caffeine and thoughts of what might be; evenings are nodding off over the laptop, when I should be writing the novel I had high hopes in the year’s first blush, of editing up to scratch for an agent. It should’ve been finished by now, this draft. I’m so far behind, on this personal invisible timetable of mine – the one I’m sure you can relate to in some way, that burning desire to please yourself if not others. It’s more than half the reason I force myself to keep up the blog, the writing, when what I want to be doing is somewhere over the grass and up in the sky.
We forget ourselves in writing. It’s a deceptive charm. How many times have you felt guilt for actually daring to walk out the door and live your life, as a human being, as opposed to strings of words and a profile picture or four? I know I have, oh so many times this year. Truth is, we compel ourselves to feel the burning rush, the appreciation, the Win-All of accomplishment. It’s an addictive serotonin buzz.
Until the dizzying high subsides. The weariness whams back in, for me at least. Walking more than ever, realizing all too soon how complacent I was, reliant on my ex and less outgoings. Now I have a higher rent and a workload to match it. The brain is close to a whiteout, as experienced the other day at work, when I fell to the gum-tacky carpet and bruised my ego more than my arse. No one was there to see, thankfully – but it put my situation into a blender. I’ve pushed things too far again.
For those not in the know, I have experienced anorexia nervosa / athletica since age 16. My body’s a little diminished from the after-effects, and while I weigh more than a decade ago at inpatient admittance, there are less reserves to compensate for overburdening. I’ve pushed out articles, fiction, gym, all with the undercurrent-turmoil of being pushed pillar to post this whole damn year. My heart gained a lead gate.
What a cliche. Let’s try that again.
I’m burning out. Unable to heed my own advice, as per experience. It becomes too easy to lose myself in the Everyday – forgetting where I’ve come from, how it can still impact on my dreams. I can’t achieve all I want to, if I don’t back off a bit every now and then. March was the last time I took a holiday of any kind.
It’s been a case of Waiting for the Other Boot to drop, all year. Now I’m in a relatively secure place, I need to make sure my head’s in a safe one too. This means backing up. I recognized the propensity for addiction in my personality a long time ago; the responsibility comes with not only identifying but acting upon it, to reduce the car-crash. The same could be said of many I’ve spoken to this year, on and offline. If you know it’s in yourself to be triggered – to feel emotionally harmed by something someone has said, whatever the context – take yourself out of the scene. Don’t dig nails into a raw wound. If you’re tired, serotonin levels drop dramatically – you’ll feel blue, out of sorts, angsty, more likely to feel and cause pain.
I know what my own triggers are. Numbers in a competitive state; certain words related to eating disorders. I’ve seen them bandied around a few times on social media sites, and while it’s no one’s fault that they appeared, a little contextual grounding has to be put in place. I know in myself that these things will cause me pain, so take myself out of the situation. It’s not fair to expect the world to walk on eggshells; they’re only as fragile as your mindset.
If I don’t feel like talking about writing because my own flags, out of apathy or weariness, I won’t hang around those that do. Nor will I respond with a pithy comment to someone’s #Amwriting tweet; we’ve all been there, felt that burning rush to express the golden glow of triumph, that perplexing sunburst of emotion that accompanies a Really Good writing session. No one deserves it more than writers, for we put ourselves through a lifetime’s hell of loneliness (while telling ourselves we are but introverts, but come on, believe in me, I speak as one myself – we’ve all known it, that guilt for stepping out the door while a narrative bays in our ear.)
But as well as being on all sides and spots of the world, we’re all in very different emotional and mental states. As much as writing is Give and Take between creator and audience, so too is social media a format based upon tact and an alliance of good manners. If you know you’re not in the mood to respond in a decent way to someone’s joyous outpouring (of any kind, I use writing as a personal example), don’t jeopardize the friendship with a sentiment you’ll likely regret when in a better frame of mind. I know I’ve had to bite my tongue a few times.
The clouds do part. The blues fall away, the reds dwindle. The waters let us lie becalmed, to sleep, to dream without waking in the night. I know this will all pass, once I’ve given myself time to build up strength to row. Hopefully this confessional (in a recessional) will allow me to fend off the demon a bit longer. I’ll force myself to step up the defenses.
So if I seem a little strange, well that’s because I am. And tired, unable to keep up with reading others’ blogs lately; for that, I do apologise, but only because I’ve let myself get to the numb stage again. Where does the guilt halve itself and become complacency of other’s understanding?
I’ll take some leave soon, from Everything, to the detriment of the work load and blog hits, novel-progression. Weight gain will probably occur, to terrify and nourish me by turns.
We all need to know this fear and this recovery.
Meanwhile, numb is the new High.
celenagaia 